Heimskringla - The Norse King Sagas

By Snorre Sturlason

This early work of poetry is both expensive and hard to find in its first edition. Written in the early thirteenth century, it contains a collection of sagas about Norwegian kings. This is a fascinating work and is thoroughly recommended for anyone interested in Norse history.
Contents Include: Dedication to King Haakon VII - Editor's Introduction - Translator's Preface - Snorre's Preface - The Ynglinga Saga, Semi-Mythical - Historic Sagas - Halfdan the Black - Harald the Fairhaired - Haakon the Good - Eric's Sons - Earl Haakon - King Olaf Tryguesson - King Olaf the Saint - Magnus the Good - Harald the Stern - Olaf the Quiet - Magnus Barefoot - The Sons of Magnus - Magnus the Blind and Harald Gille - The Sons of Harald - Haakon the Broad-Shouldered - Magnus Erlingson - List of Old Sagas - List of Kings of Sweden, Denmark, Norway - Index of Names and Places.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Mar 24, 2011
• ISBN: 9781446548059

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INTRODUCTION

It is to an Icelandic bard and chieftain, Snorre Sturlason, that we owe the Sagas of the Norse Kings. He had been keenly interested in the legendary songs and historic narratives which the scalds had sung or told in the common hall of the great house at Odde which was his childhood’s home. Early in the thirteenth century he began to collate and compile the scaldic poems and traditional tales; and at intervals from 1220 onward he committed each saga to writing in the Old Norse tongue, then generally understood throughout the North.

The complete collection has come to be known as Heimskringla, the Icelandic word with which the series of tales begins. We have first of all the Ynglinga Saga or narrative of the Yngling family from the legendary Odin to Halfdan the Black, a period which closes semi-historically in the ninth century. Then follow sixteen sagas covering a historic period of upwards of three centuries—from 839 to 1177.

The present volume contains all the sagas except two, which have already appeared in Everyman’s Library, under the title Heimskringla—The Olaf Sagas (No. 717). In the Introduction to that volume all necessary information regarding the Heimskringla and Snorre Sturlason himself was given. Here we need only add such additional observations as may enable the reader to appreciate the unique contribution which these sagas make to the scanty historical and literary lore of Europe at that period.

The Heimskringla opens in mythical and pagan days, and it shows us the Norse coming into contact with Christianity in Scotland and Ireland. Thereafter, mainly through Anglo-Saxon influence, Norway was Christianised. In due time the Norse kings and leaders took part in the Crusades, and their feats of valour received ample recognition and reward. And although the roving traits in the national character were only partially subdued, we observe the evolving of gentler manners, kindlier customs, and a Christian legislation, all the more interesting to us because it was an evolution in great measure due to the influence of our ancestors on their originally pagan invaders.

THE VIKING AGE

Saga Time and Viking Age are frequently employed as if they were synonymous terms. But they are not really so. The number of the sagas cannot be exactly stated. A saga purports to be the story of a man’s life and exploits. Some of the narratives are so lengthy and contain such comprehensive references to other men, that minor sagas can be compiled from them. Many of the sagas are more or less mythical and their dates conjectural; but there are hundreds of sagas, the most important being specified in the appendix. Reckoning only those sagas to which a more a less definite date can be assigned, it may be accepted that Saga Time extended from the sixth to the fourteenth century, the Orkneyinga Saga coming down to a date later than almost any other. Saga Time, then, covered about eight hundred years.

The Norse, one might say, only came into history when the vikings began their ravaging raids in the eighth century, and the Viking Age proper occupied not more than three hundred years. That period may be divided into two; the one embracing the era of the plundering expeditions on the coastal kingdoms of Europe up till the middle of the ninth century, and the other covering the time when, as actual invaders, the Norse occupied large sections of territory and set up kingdoms of their own.

WHENCE CAME THE VIKINGS?

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 787 (789) says:

Here King Beortric took Offa’s daughter Eadberg in marriage. In his days (785–802) came first three Northmen’s ships: and the count rode down to them and wanted to take them to the king’s farm: for he did not know who they were: but they killed him there. These were the first Danish men’s ships which came to England.

That was at Dorchester in Wessex. But the MS. D., drawing from a northern tradition or an older MS., says: 3 scypu Nordmanna af Haeredaland.

Prof. A. Taranger, LL. D., and Norwegian authorities hold that the Haeredaland of the A. S. C. corresponds to the Hordeland of Western Norway, extending from Bommelfjord in the south almost to Sognefjord in the north, including the whole of the famous Hardanger, Vossevangen and Bergen districts. The reference to Danish men in the Chronicle was evidently only a supposition, corrected in later MSS. to Haeredaland. In the Irish Chronicle Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaib (The war of the Irish with the Northmen), which deals with the period extending from 795 to 1002, the invaders are said to come from Hirotha or Irruaith; and the Irish contemporary writers speak of Norway as Lochlann; and the lann being a Scandinavian word, it is probably younger than Hirotha. Loch corresponds to the Norse fjord, sjö; and Lochlann thus would mean sjöland, coastal district. Danish records make no mention of raids on England about that time, whilst Norse and Irish Chronicles do specifically refer to such ravaging expeditions as coming from the fjords and coastal districts of Western Norway. There seems no reasonable doubt, then, that the pillagers of Dorchester, Lindisfarne, and elsewhere, from over the North Sea, were Norsemen from some fjord within sixty miles of Bergen.

What then were the vikings? The term viking has nothing whatever to do with a king. The word is vik-ing not vi-king; and vik means a creek. The Norwegian fjords are usually well furnished with creeks and bays, and the place-names ending in vik are innumerable. In Saga Time, Viken—the Creek, the Great Creek—was the bay on which Oslo, as it then was and now again is called, was situated. In Scotland, Wick is just the Norse word Vik; Lerwick is the muddy creek; Berwick the bare creek. And the vikings were creek-dwellers, men who housed their galleys in these creeks or bays or fjords. They were men who, if driven by necessity of any kind, did not hesitate to set out, in single ships or in bands of two or three, to supply themselves at some risk, and sometimes at considerable cost, with things they envied or required. But eventually the vikings arrived at a moral code that made it wrong for them to plunder Norse coasts or merchant ships, unless, of course, there was some private quarrel or family feud demanding settlement. And in their plundering raids they ceased murdering women, although they might carry them off as captives and keep them for their own purposes or dispose of them in ways prescribed.

The early vikings were not necessarily important personages, but in course of time the leader of a small plundering expedition might gain name and fame because of his seamanship and successes. Such a leader soon had plenty of volunteers for bigger expeditions and further forays, until usually a foreign viking raid was well equipped with ships and with men inured to exposure and hardships of every kind. And although these vikings might be termed brutal robbers and murderers by those who suffered from their violence, in their own country they were looked upon as engaged in an honourable profession, just as pirates, privateers, letters-of-marque men, slavers and other rovers in later days in our own land too often lost but little respect from those at home who knew quite well how nefarious were their deeds on the high seas or on the islands and coasts of the main.

VIKINGS AND SEA-KINGS

In the course of time a condition of affairs arose in Norway that led to a great increase in the size of the viking expeditions, under the leadership of nobles and princes. In the early Saga Time and at the beginning of the Viking Age, Norway was merely a conglomeration of larger or smaller, more or less well defined, districts, each under its own independent chieftain or kinglet, The stronger chiefs in time managed to bring the weaker or smaller kingdoms into subjection, until at the beginning of the ninth century one of the ancient Yngling race, in the person of Halfdan the Black, had become the most powerful of all the chiefs in the land, and the first really deserving the title of king. And, in the reign of his son Harald the Fairhaired, all the petty kings of Norway had been slain or become tributary to him.

Before the time of Harald the chieftains assumed the title of jarl (earl) or even the name of king; and it is difficult to discover any distinction between the two terms. But the viking raids gradually led to a distinction. Any jarl who, with his subjects or followers, sailed from Norway to other lands to subdue a district was reckoned a king by his men. And when Harald had subdued all Norway the kinglets and their sons who went a-roving became known as Sea-kings, to distinguish them from those who stayed at home to administer the realms. Vikings, as we have seen, were the ordinary Norsemen who had their homes on the coastal regions of the Western Fjords, who went on expeditions overseas. The Sea-kings were well-born viking leaders who went forth with larger or smaller fleets of ships.

And these vikings and sea-kings were as great a scourge in other European lands as in our own. As early as the seventh century they had visited the Hebrides and Ireland. Later on the Orkneys, Shetlands, Faeroes, Iceland, Denmark, Flanders, Germany knew them too well, and in 845 they captured Paris and sacked Hamburg. They visited the White Sea to seize the valuable furs collected there for the trade with Constantinople; and they made their way to Spain, the Mediterranean, and even Palestine. The story of the viking Vaeringer at Constantinople, in the Saga of Magnus the Good, shows what influence and power the vikings exercised there. Other sagas tell stories of men and regions whereof otherwise we might never have heard at all.

FROM PAGANISM TO CHRISTIANITY

The sagas, although sometimes first written down centuries after the incidents they record, generally had been transmitted orally in precisely the same form, down from contemporary times. A comparison of the sagas shows clearly the evolution of habits and morals, of customs and laws; and in no respect is this so manifest as in the transition from utter paganism in the earlier to pronounced Christian faith in the later narratives. And this makes the whole series of the sagas of peculiar interest to British readers; for directly and indirectly the conversion of Norway was due to the influence and activity of the Anglo-Saxon people and priests and kings.

Before 787, occasional merchant ships had come to the English coast on peaceful errands and had carried back to Norway glowing reports regarding the fertility and wealth of the land. But in that black year the first viking fleet, consisting of three vessels, as we have seen, visited our shores with hostile intent. In 793 another raid was made and the vikings fell on St. Cuthbert’s Abbey of Lindisfarne, the most venerable spot in England, and ten years later St. Columba’s island of Iona, Scotland’s most holy place, was also ravaged. Sacrilege and the blood of monks marked the course of these pirates from Norway, In succeeding years the vikings became bolder and more numerous until, from the Cheviots to the river Thames, the land was subject to their sway. Alfred the Great came just in time to prevent the West Saxon kingdom from being conquered too. Then at Ethandune in 879 the vikings were defeated, hostages were given that Wessex would be left unmolested and that the viking king Gudrun would become a Christian and receive baptism, Alfred himself was sponsor at the baptism of the king who received the name Athelstan and who, with rich gifts, withdrew to his own kingdom of East Anglia, where he reigned till his death in 890. King Gudred of York, his contemporary, is described as a friend and protector of the Church; and apparently the majority of the Norwegians under the sway of these two kings also became Christians.

Until the Norse kings, in 954, lost their independence and became fused with the English nation they left deep marks on the Anglo-Saxons; but contact, for a century and a half, with the Christianity of England greatly affected their own minds and morals, their characters and lives. The vikings had come to our shores as pagans, but so surely as they remained for some time, or settled in this country, they accepted the Christian faith and changed their mode of life. And so vikings from Norway visiting England, and settlers on their return from England, carried back some knowledge of the Christian faith. A pagan sire might perhaps curse the son who, during a viking expedition, had bowed the knee to the White Christ; but others of the family wanted to know more about the new God; and then, for the introduction of the new faith to Norway, all that was needed was the hour and the man.

The sagas tell us how Harald the Fairhaired, having subdued the kinglets and petty rulers, became the first sovereign of all Norway. He had many sons who were headstrong and ambitious, so he sent his youngest son Haakon to England to King Athelstan, grandson of Alfred the Great, to be trained and educated; and the boy became known as Haakon Athelstan’s-foster (son). He won the affection of all by his intelligence, prowess, ability, and friendliness. In course of time he was baptised and confirmed, and he took a great interest in religion and the Christian laws.

Harald the Fairhaired was succeeded by his son Eric of the Bloody Axe, who in four years killed at least four of his brothers and oppressed the people beyond endurance. So the Norwegian jarls and peasants sent to England and begged Haakon to come and rule over them. And when he arrived in 934, Eric, deserted by nearly all, fled to other shores, and Haakon ruled for twenty-seven years and has come down to history as Haakon the Good. He sent for a bishop and priests to come from England to Christianise his land; and Glastonbury had the honour of providing from among its monks the first bishop of Norway and other missionaries. These were placed over the churches which Haakon had erected, built of wood, of course, as all other houses were. The new religion naturally met with opposition in many districts and the three churches in Möre and others were burned and the priests slain. England therefore provided the first Christian king for Norway, the first bishop, and the first martyrs for the Cross in the land of the vikings. The next really Christian king was Olaf Trygvesson who had come to England as leader of a viking host which did incalculable injury. He was indeed the victor of Maldon, perhaps the most famous fight of all the Viking Age. Then he entered into league with Ethelred the West Saxon king; and Aelfheah, bishop of Winchester, was the means of converting the viking leader to the Christian faith. Olaf became a very zealous Christian; and when he was summoned from England to Norway, as Haakon the Good had been, he resolved to do all he could to make Norway a truly Christian land. On a spring day in 995 a young viking sailing over from the Faeroe Isles made for Bergen. But when he came to one of the outmost skerries he landed there at Moster and held a Christian service. This was Olaf, and when he had received the Norwegian crown he went back to Moster and caused a church to be erected on the spot where he had worshipped God on his reaching Norway the previous year. It was to be a a memorial church; and it was built of stone by English monks, whom he had brought with him. They built it after the fashion of English churches, and there it stands to-day at Moster Isle, not only the oldest church in Norway but the oldest in any of the Scandinavian lands.

Olaf only reigned for five years, but in that brief period he destroyed many pagan temples, erected many Christian churches, and set ministers over them. He founded Nidaros, known to us as Trondhjem, and St. Clement’s Church which was the forerunner of the cathedral there to-day. In introducing the Christian religion and laws, Olaf was aided by Bishop Sigward who had accompanied him from England.

And the third king who secured the final acceptance of Christianity was another Olaf who has come to be known as Olaf King and Saint. He also visited England and fought at Ringmere in 1010. He was present at the assault on Canterbury in 1012 when Bishop Aelfheah, who had converted Olaf Trygvesson, was maltreated and martyred. But Olaf himself in turn was brought under Christian influences, and he attached himself to King Ethelred and received baptism and became a devoted Christian. He was crowned as King of Norway in 1015. He planted churches wherever he went and left zealous priests in charge of them. He fell in battle at Stiklestad in 1030. But the great concern of his life was secured before he died. The Norwegian Church was fully organised; and a code of Christian laws drawn up by his bishop, Grimkell, had been adopted at the popular assemblies in all parts of the land. Paganism was dead; Christianity had come to reign in Viking-land.

As we have seen, the three kings by whom the introduction of Christianity in Norway was commenced, continued and completed, had all visited England, resided for some time in the country, and come under Christian influences here. England had greatly suffered by the ravages of the vikings; but they taught us many things, especially how to build ships and to fare upon the sea. In turn we gave them missionaries and martyrs, and the Christian faith and laws, that brought them into the comity of Christian nations, in which they have played a worthy part and contributed greatly to the international weal.

THE ANGLO-SAXON MISSIONARIES

THE information given us in the sagas, regarding the Anglo-Saxon missionaries who were the pioneers of Christianity in Norway, is meagre; but fortunately we can glean something about several of them from other sources than the Heimskringla.

In the Saga of Haakon the Good (p. 94) we learn that he sent to England for a bishop and other teachers; and when they arrived in Norway Haakon made it known that he would proclaim Christianity over the whole land. He then had several churches erected and consecrated, and he put priests over them. Some time afterwards, however, men went southward to Möre in four ships and killed three priests and burned their churches. That is the account the saga gives us of a bishop in Norway between 950 and 960.

William of Malmesbury, in his De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae, tells us that among the Glastonbury monks, who in King Edgar’s time were bishops in various places, was a Norwegian bishop, Sigfrid, whose death day was 5 April. Now it was only in Glastonbury that men could then have been found to undertake so difficult and dangerous a task as that of attempting to Christianise Norway. We know what fate befell them, but unfortunately the Norwegian tradition has not preserved to us the names of these martyr monks. If the Glastonbury monk, Sigfrid, was one of them, both Anglo-Saxon and Norwegian Church history would be enriched by a name worthy of remembrance. And all honour is due to Sigfrid, even if he did escape persecution by the Norwegians after Haakon’s death and returned safely to England

A generation passed and then another Anglo-Saxon Christian mission crossed over to Norway. After Olaf Trygvesson had resided six months in England he returned to his own country in the spring of 995. He was accompanied by Christian teachers and a bishop called Sigward, a name which soon became Sigurd on the lips of the Norse. This Sigward or Sigurd had attached himself to Bishop Aelfheah, Olaf Tryg-vesson’s old teacher and a zealous worker for the conversion of the Norse settlers and others in England. Before he left home with Olaf, Sigward was consecrated as Bishop sub titulo missionis, and in due time he became King Olaf’s chief confidant and counsellor.

In the Latin Acta Sanctorum in Selio vii it is said that by Olaf’s zeal and perseverance, the Norwegian people through the holy and venerable man, Bishop Sigurd, received the sacraments of the Christian faith, after they had abjured idolatry. The bishop was the main instrument, but he was backed up by the king. Yet there were times when Olaf forgot himself and sought to wreak vengeance on personal opponents. On one occasion when Bishop Sigurd heard the news of a specially cruel act he bitterly upbraided the king, and he did not cease his reproaches until Olaf fell at his feet confessing his misdeed and acknowledging the sin of his abominable act. That incident gives some idea of the spirit and character of Bishop Sigurd. Tradition in Iceland tells us that, after Olaf’s death, Sigurd went to Sweden at the request of Olaf Skotkonung, and there he baptised that king and many of his men and acted as a missionary until he had attained a great age.

That Icelandic record was committed to writing by the Thingöre monk Gunnlaug Leifson about 1180; it rests on verbal tradition reaching back to the eleventh century; and it agrees with Swedish tradition. Gunnlaug reports that in his old age Bishop Sigurd lived quietly at Veksjö, One day he made public confession of everything he had done amiss towards God. A few days later he sickened and, after suffering much pain, peacefully departed this life to God the Almighty. The day of his death was 15 February, but the year is not indicated. The sainted Sigurd was canonised in 1158, by Pope Hadrian IV, the well-known cardinal of our history, the Englishman Nicholas Breakspear.

In the year 996 an event happened which may have its place here. It is recorded in the Acta Sanctorum in Selio and may be compared with Beda V 10. It seems that in the early days of the great Otto I there lived in Ireland a princess named Sunniva. After her father’s death her land was ravaged by a pagan prince who wished to marry her. In order to escape his unwelcome attentions she sailed away with three ships and some of her people. A storm eventually drove them to Fyrdafylke, the region between the Sogne and Molde fjords in Norway, and they took refuge in some caves at Selje and Kinn. There they supported themselves by fishing. But the rude inhabitants of the mainland were hostile and accused Sunniva and her folk of stealing their cattle; and they made arrangements to drive the foreigners away. When Sunniva and her companions learned this they entered the caves and prayed to God that the rocks might fall on them, and their prayer was answered. In the course of time, one day a pillar of light was seen at the mouth of the cave at Selje; and the light was found to come from a human head. The head was taken to Bishop Sigurd, who declared it to be a saint-relic. King Olaf and Sigurd then went to Selje; and at the spot they found some human bones emitting a sweet odour. They also discovered the body of the saintly Sunniva quite unscathed. So they erected a church there and enshrined the remains in it in 996. And there, at Selje in Nordfjord, the ruins of St. Sunniva’s Church are still to be seen, hardly however of the original church erected by Bishop Sigurd. It is known that in 1170 Bishop Paul caused the relics of the saint to be removed to Bergen and placed in the cathedral there.

Bishop Sigurd is understood to have been the moving spirit in the founding of Nidaros (Trondhjem) with its church and its palace right opposite the old king’s house of Lade, with all its ancient pagan traditions. And the dedication of that new church to St. Clement gives evidence, if that were needed, of the English bishop’s influence; for London had two Clement churches, one of them being the special church of the Northmen in London. Gunnlaug informs us that, on account of his vigour and zeal and devotion, Sigurd had become the apostle of all the Norse.

The only other of Olaf’s missionaries mentioned by the sagas is Theobrand, or Thangbrand, who was placed over the first church on Moster Isle. At a later date he was entrusted with the work of introducing Christianity into Iceland. There he quickly gained the friendship of the powerful chief Sidu Hall; and after he had instructed them in the rudiments of the Christian faith, Hall and all his folk and many other chiefs were baptised. Theobrand is characterised as a tall strong and courageous man, and a good and eloquent priest, but inclined to be obstinate when he was angry. No fewer than nine place-names bear record to his two years’ residence in Iceland. Nothing is known about his fate, and we are not told who succeeded him at Moster Church.

Theobrand’s successor in Iceland was Thormod, another of the English missionaries, six of whom at least accompanied him to the North, and they built a church on the spot where they first landed in Iceland. In a very short space of time Thormod and his band had the joy of consummating the triumph of Christianity and its adoption by the Althing as the religion of Iceland in the year 1000. Thereafter, Thormod undertook the task of guiding the first steps of the Icelanders along the path of Christian faith and service; but we hear no more about him and his fellow clergy.

We have no means of knowing exactly how many English missionaries King Olaf had to assist him in his work of Christianising his realms, beyond those mentioned by name. But Olaf probably left some in the Orkneys, which were Christianised on his passage from England to Norway; and he sent priests to the Faeroe Isles which also gave up the old pagan faith as a result of their labours. Olaf built many churches in addition to those at Moster, Selje, and Nidaros, but how many these really were is not now known.

The Olaf who has become known to us as St. Olaf also brought religious teachers and advisers with him from England—among them four who were famed for their erudition, zeal, and devotion, viz. Grimkell, Sigfrid, Rudolf, and Bernard. They traversed the whole mainland and visited all the islands round the coast, preaching the Word of God and the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Grimkell was the foremost, and he was a nephew of Sigurd, the bishop of Olaf Trygvesson. Grimkell was the king’s ecclesiastical adviser and he had taken the lead in the conversion of Olaf himself. As the sagas speak with appreciation of him and all his work, it seems only necessary to make the following reference to him.

It was Bishop Grimkell who compiled the mass for St. Olaf. Singularly enough, an officium for St. Olaf’s day was discovered last century in a missal which belonged to Bishop Leofric of Exeter (1050–72). The MS. dated from a period within a single generation after Olaf’s death; and the Office, in substance, was derived from the book of Jesu Sirach and from the Psalms of David, the biblical descriptions of Israel’s prophets and kings being transferred to King Olaf.

Bishop Sigfrid, the next on the list, evidently came to Norway from England somewhat later than Grimkell. According to Adam (IV, 3) he was that Sigafridus, uncle of Osmund, who preached to the Swedes as well as to the Norse; and he lived up till our own day, along with other equally famous priests among that people. He certainly was in Norway during the life of Olaf; and after labouring for some years among the Norse he extended his missionary activity to Sweden. The sagas tell us what an important part he played in the Christianising of Norway. His quiet, patient labours, although not marked by any spectacular incidents, were recognised beyond the limits of Scandinavia, and Adam of Bremen gives an honourable and imperishable memorial of this Bishop Sigurd, the English missionary, who survived at least till 1046.

Rudolf, the next in the series of Anglo-Saxon missionaries in Norway, appears in the episcopal lists as Bishop of Nidaros. He seems to have been related to the English king, Edward the Confessor. Rudolf accompanied Bishop Sigurd on his visit, in 1030 or 1031, to the Bremen Archbishop Liawizo, to whom he gave an account of the great progress the gospel had made among the heathen in the North. On his return he found that the organisation of the Church was advancing rapidly, so instead of settling again in Norway, he set sail for Iceland to help in establishing the Church there too. He remained in Iceland for nineteen years, residing chiefly at Baer in Borgarfjord. He then returned to England, where in 1050 he was appointed Abbot of Abingdon by King Edward, an office he only held for two years. He died in 1052. His relationship to the English king would have secured for him any post to which he might have aspired in his native land; but his religious zeal led him to renounce any prospects of preferment in England, and to engage in work that was hard and difficult if not even dangerous. Yet he did not falter in his chosen career; and for thirty-four years he toiled in Norway and Iceland, and only forsook that northern sphere of service when advancing age compelled him to relinquish the work to younger men. Rudolf left behind the record of a zealous and devoted life, and when he departed he appointed three monks to remain behind at Baer to carry on the school for the training of priests which he had set up and carried on at Borgarfjord.

The fourth of the bishops who came from England to help Olaf in his labours for the conversion of Norway, was Bernard. At an early period of his reign Olaf had sent word to the most prominent jurists and the bravest men in Iceland, requesting them to revise the laws of the land in a Christian spirit and to remove the pagan prescriptions from their code. Bernard was King Olaf’s ambassador on that occasion. For five years he laboured in Iceland supervising the preparation of the Christian code of laws and seeing it put into practical operation. Bernard by his character, courtesy, and wisdom made a great impression on the Icelanders who, in course of time, applied to him the title of The Bookwise. The usual title of a learned man was Hinn Frode (The Wise). Bernard, of course, had no acquaintance with the Icelandic lore and kindred subjects, but the Icelanders esteemed him for his knowledge of books, so unfamiliar to them, and for his skill in teaching would-be priests to master their contents. The name Bookwise therefore testifies to the regard the newly converted Icelanders had for Bernard as the representative of a new culture and a new knowledge which they esteemed. After his work in Iceland was done, it is understood that Bernard returned to England, and that he was appointed Bishop of Skaane by King Canute, who certainly had a bishop of that name.

Adam of Bremen does not mention any other of the Anglo-Saxon missionaries who helped King Olaf to introduce the gospel and Christianity to his realms. But he does report that many priests (multi presbyteri) accompanied Olaf to Norway and among them there were some men of distinction (nan obscuri sacerdotes). This explains how, wherever Olaf went, he was able to leave priests to attend to the newly erected churches. And so the Anglo-Saxon Church provided not merely the first martyrs and missionaries, but also the bishops and the priests and ministers in the earliest churches and parishes in Norway.

An interesting evidence of the close connection between the Churches of England and Norway from the time of Olaf’s death to the advent of William the Conqueror, is the great reverence and respect for the Norse king in this country. As we have already noted, the most ancient Office for St. Olaf’s day appears in an English missal at Exeter, about twenty years after Olaf’s death, A short mass for the same day is found in the Red Book of Derby, which was begun in 1061 and seems to originate from Winchester. In the Northumbrian MS. D of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under the year 1055, we read: In that year Siward, Earl of York, died and he lies buried in Galmanbo, in the church which he had built and consecrated in the name of God and Olaf. This Olaf church was therefore erected prior to 1055. In Chester, Chichester, and Exeter there were also Olaf churches, and there were no fewer than five such in London. There was no land, apart from Scandinavia, where Olaf worship spread so rapidly and widely as in England.

After Olaf’s death the friendly relation between England and Norway continued. Under Magnus the Good the two bishops, Grimkell and Sigurd, still continued their work, and it is believed that other priests came to their help from England. And in the days of Harald the Stern, as we learn from Adam of Bremen (III, 16, and Schol. 70), King Harald sent his bishops to Gaul (i. e. to be consecrated) and he received also many who came to him from England. One of these was Asgaut, a nephew of Bishop Grimkell. Asgaut was the third bishop of Nidaros but was afterwards translated to Oslo to be the first bishop of that diocese. Under him the Church in all the provinces of Norway flourished and made most gratifying progress. Asgaut was thus one of the most eminent ecclesiastics in the land. He was a nephew of Bishop Grimkell, who in turn was a nephew of Sigurd, Olaf Trygvesson’s pioneer bishop; and Jon, a bishop of Nidaros, was a nephew of Asgaut—truly a noble and consecrated family.

Still another Englishman, Osmund, a nephew of Bishop Sigurd, Grimkell’s colleague, was among the Norwegian bishops who were consecrated elsewhere than in Bremen. But he made his peace with Archbishop Adalbert, with whose blessing he returned to the north. Eventually he came back to England and resided for some time with Edward the Confessor, who was very favourably disposed to him. Osmund visited the monastery at Ely and finally settled there as one of the fraternity, to whom he acted as bishop. And when he died he left to the brethren the episcopal insignia and ornaments which had been given to him during his life. The Historia Eliensis gives a very interesting account of this Osmund, the last of the Anglo-Saxon missionaries in Norway.

In the list of the bishops of Nidaros two names appear before that of Asgaut, viz. Ragnar and Ketil, of whom we know nothing; but it is possible that these may have been among the non obscuri sacerdotes mentioned by Adam of Bremen. He also refers to a certain Heric, a foreigner, who preached the gospel among the Swedes and won the martyr crown. Another, by name Ælfward, led a holy life among the Norwegians for a long time; but he was slain by his friends when, on a certain occasion, he wanted to protect one of their enemies. This Norse martyr, from his name Ælfward, was probably an Anglo-Saxon missionary, and deserves to be remembered among the others, who had an honourable share in bringing about the conversion of Norway and Iceland from paganism to the Christian faith, an enterprise which lasted for about 120 years and had its approximate close in 1070.

The churches erected in Norway, until the middle of the twelfth century, showed the prevailing influence of Anglo-Saxon and latterly Anglo-Norman style and structure. The most of these churches were built of stone with double walls of unhewn or roughly hewn blocks. The chancel was rectangular, the arched windows were few and small, and the corners of the buildings were made with alternate short and long square-cut soapstone. And the characteristic Stave churches (erected of upright timber beams), of which Norway at one time possessed about eight hundred, may have had an English origin too. Of these some thirty still survive. The Stave churches date from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The oldest of the extant churches is that of Urnes in Sogn, erected in 1100. These churches were built of huge trunks with planks on both sides of the timber, and often with quaint ornamentation on the doors and elsewhere. The gables were numerous and usually adorned with dragon heads. The Stave churches had no windows but merely small round apertures high up in the walls. They had only a single nave, and the chancel was lower and narrower than the nave and often with a semicircular apse. At Chipping Ongar in Essex there is an ancient Stave church, the extant portion dating back to the beginning of the eleventh century, therefore earlier far than any Norse Stave church. The ground plan of the Ongar church is identical with that of the Norse Stave churches. And it is therefore interesting to think that the quaint Stave churches, which most people deem to be absolutely characteristic of Norse ecclesiastical architecture, may have been as truly English in origin as the Moster and other stone churches of a still earlier date.

Before the vikings commenced their hostile raids it is very certain that adventurous traders had found their way over the North Sea and done business along our coasts. In the course of time these friendly visitors might have learned to use our language; but in number these traders were comparatively few. How then was it that, when the viking long-ships came, the Norse pillagers had no difficulty in acquiring information and making themselves understood wherever they went? How was it that in later days when the Norsemen began to settle in England and compelled towns and districts to accept their sway, they had apparently no difficulty in securing obedience to the regulations and laws imposed? And how was it that when the Anglo-Saxon bishops and priests carried the gospel and Christianity to Norway the missionaries seem at once to have been able to converse with the people and to preach with immediate results without any apparent linguistic difficulty?

It was because there really was no language obstacle. Roughly speaking, until after the year 1000 there was one language understood over all the north of Europe, with differences hardly greater than some of our present dialects in various parts of Britain, or the differences between Danish, Swedish, and Norse to-day. The ancient Rimbelga (iii, c. 1) records: When the Asia men settled in the North the tongue which we call Norrön came with them; and it went through Saxland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and part of England. In the Saga of Gunnlaug Ormstunga (c. 7) we are told: In 979 King Ethelred son of Edgar ruled over England. The tongue in England as well as in Norway and Denmark was then one—but it changed in England when William the Bastard conquered England.

The North European peoples, then, had practically a common language with only dialectal differences. The Saga of Egil Skallagrimson, gives us a good sample of this. Egil was an Icelander speaking the Norrön tongue, and his life extended from about 890 to 980. He was a great traveller, and when he reached Norway he sang in the king’s hall and in the humble homes and was understood by all. In Sweden the jarls welcomed and honoured him, and he made friends wherever he went. His wanderings led him to Russia, where language threw no obstacles in his way; and we are told that he met three Danes who were prisoners there for whom he felt compassion, and he helped to plan an escape for them. And when he landed in England about 1006 he seems to have been as much at home here as in other lands, and he had no difficulty with our language.

The Northumbrian version of the Paternoster resembles both the South England rendering which Ælfric made, and the Norse-Icelandic version; indeed it comes, as it were, midway between them. The variations of the three dialects or idioms were of such a kind that evidently the Norse, Northumbrians, and Anglo-Saxons could understand each other; and after a short residence in one of the lands a visitor from another could speak the new tongue with comparative fluency. The missionaries from Northern England could immediately be understood in Norway, and the bishops and priests from Glastonbury or elsewhere in the South of England after a short residence in Norway or Iceland were able to speak and preach with eloquence and convincing power, as tradition tells us and the sagas show.

Among the most permanent results of the missionary labour of these pioneers in Norway were the Christian code of laws and the ecclesiastical names and terms. The terms bishop, priest, dean, abbot, monk, nun, cloister, kirk, school, and nearly all the terms for acts of worship and religious practice were adopted with the minimum of change from the Anglo-Saxon nomenclature, there being, of course, no native words suitable for the purpose. These names and terms are still employed; and many old customs survive from those early days. For instance, the custom of crowning the bride has long since disappeared from among ourselves; and only from May Queen floral chaplets and the references in literature can we learn, and that imperfectly, what the nuptial crowns were like. But the Norse wedding crowns that are still used in country districts can give us some idea of the crowns worn by Anglo-Saxon brides in the old days. As late as the sixteenth century the churchwardens’ accounts for St. Margaret’s Westminster contain such an item as this: Paid to Alice Lewis, a goldsmith’s wife of London, three pounds and ten shillings, for a circlet to marry maidens in. And so these quaint Norwegian wedding crowns remind us of an interesting custom which the missionaries introduced to Norway but which is wellnigh forgotten among ourselves.

In this year of grace (1930) the Norwegians will observe with fitting ceremonial the nine hundredth anniversary of the death of Olaf King and Saint. The ancient cathedral at Trondhjem, which had suffered from the ravages of calamity and age and has been undergoing restoration for seventy years, will then be completed and reopened in the presence of representatives from all parts of the country, and from other lands as well, including our own. In connection with such an event it is not unfitting that this edition of the Sagas of the Norse Kings, the first truly popular English edition, should be issued now. For, as we have seen, the sagas tell us not only of the Norsemen’s early visits to England but also of the worthy part our ancestors played in the winning of Norway and Iceland from paganism to Christianity. And it is also seemly that the Everyman’s Library edition of the sagas should be inscribed to Norway’s beloved sovereign, who is bound by many ties to the British royal family, to Haakon VII who is a lineal descendant of Haakon the Good, Norway’s first Christian king.

J. B.

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

IT is of importance to English history to have, in the English language, the means of judging of the social and intellectual state—of the institutions and literature—of a people who during three hundred years bore an important, and for a great portion of that time a predominant part, not merely in the wars, but in the legislation of England; who occupied a very large proportion of the country, and were settled in its best lands in such numbers as to be governed by their own, not by Anglo-Saxon laws; and who undoubtedly must be the forefathers of as large a proportion of the present English nation as the Anglo-Saxons themselves, and of a much larger proportion than the Normans. These Northmen have not merely been the forefathers of the people, but of the institutions and character of the nation, to an extent not sufficiently considered by our historians. Civilised or not in comparison with the Anglo-Saxons, the Northmen must have left the influences of their character, institutions, barbarism or culture, among their own posterity. They occupied one third of all England for many generations, under their own laws; and for half a century nearly, immediately previous to the Norman conquerors, they held the supreme government of the country. It is doing good service in the fields of literature to place the English reader in a position to judge for himself of the influence which the social arrangements and spirit of these Northmen may have had on the national character, and free institutions which have grown up among us from elements planted by them, or by the Anglo-Saxons. This translation of Snorre Sturlason’s Sagas of the Norse Kings will place the English reader in this position. He will see what sort of people these Northmen were who conquered and colonised the kingdoms of Northumberland, East Anglia, and other districts, equal to one-third of all England at that time, and who lived under their own laws in that portion of England; and he will See what their institutions and social spirit were at home, whether these bear any analogy to what sprung up in England afterwards, and whether to them or to the Anglo-Saxon race we are most indebted for our national character and free constitution of government. The translator of Snorre Sturlason’s Sagas hopes, too, that his labour will be of good service in the fields of literature, by bringing before the English public a work of great literary merit—one which the poet, or the reader for amusement, may place in his library, as well as the antiquary and reader of English history.

.     .     .     .     .     .     .

The translator believes also that it opens up a new and rich field of character and incident, in which the reader who seeks amusement only will find much to interest him. The adventures, manners, mode of living, characters, and conversations of these sea-kings, are highly dramatic, in Snorre’s work at least; and are told with a racy simplicity and truthfulness of language which the translator cannot flatter himself with having attained or preserved. AH he can say for his work is, that any translation is better than none; and others may be stimulated by it to enter into the same course of study, who may do more justice to a branch of literature scarcely known among us.

S. LAING.

EDINBURGH, 1844.

(Dr. Samuel Laing, the translator of the Heimskringla, was peculiarly fitted for the task he undertook. He was an Orcadian, steeped in all the necessary lore, and acquainted with the languages and lands concerned. And the work was so well done eighty-five years ago that it has never been superseded).

Vide p. 1, The Olaf Sagas, Everyman’s Library, Vol. 717.

SNORRE’S PREFACE

IN this book I have had old stories written down, as I have heard them told by intelligent people, concerning chiefs who have held dominion in the northern countries, and who spoke the Danish tongue¹; and also concerning some of their family branches, according to what has been told me. Some of this is found in ancient family registers, in which the pedigrees of kings and other personages of high birth are reckoned up, and part is written down after old songs and ballads which our forefathers had for their amusement. Now, although we cannot just say what truth there may be in these, yet we have the certainty that old and wise men held them to be true.

Thjodolf hinn Frode² of Kvine³ was the scald of King Harald the Fair-haired, and he composed a poem for King Ragnvald the Mountain-high, which is called Ynglingatal. This Ragnvald was a son of Olaf Geirstade-Alv, the brother of King Halfdan the Black. In this poem thirty of his forefathers are reckoned up, and the death and burial-place of each are given. He begins with Fjolne, a son of Yngvefrey, whom the Swedes, long after his time, worshipped and sacrificed to, and from him (Yngve) the race and family of the Ynglings take their name.

Eyvind Skaldaspiller also reckoned up the ancestors of Earl Hakon⁴ the Great in a poem called Haleigjatal, composed about Hakon; and therein he mentions Sæming, a son of Yngvefrey, and he likewise tells of the death and funeral rites of each. The lives and times of the Yngling race were written from Thjodolf’s narrative enlarged afterwards by the accounts of intelligent people.

As to funeral rites, the earliest age is called the Age of Burning; because all the dead were consumed by fire, and over their ashes were raised standing stones.¹ But after Frey was buried under a mound at Upsal,² many chiefs raised mounds, as commonly as stones, to the memory of their relatives.

The Age of Mounds began properly in Denmark after Dan Mikillati (the Magnificent) had raised for himself a burial-mound, and ordered that he should be buried in it on his death, with his royal ornaments and armour, his horse and saddle-furniture, and other valuable goods; and many of his descendants followed his example. But the burning of the dead continued, long after that time, to be the custom of the Swedes and Northmen.³

Iceland was settled in the time that Harald Fairhair was the King of Norway. There were scalds in Harald’s court whose poems the people know by heart even at the present day, together with all the songs about the kings who have ruled in Norway since his time; and we rest the foundations of our story principally upon the songs which were sung in the presence of the chiefs themselves or of their sons, and take all to be true that is found in such poems about their feats and battles: for although it be the fashion with scalds to praise most those in whose presence they are standing, yet no one would dare to relate to a chief what he, and all those who heard it, knew to be a false and imaginary, not a true account of his deeds; because that would be mockery, not praise.

The priest Are hinn Frode⁴ (the Wise), a son of Thorgils the son of Gellis, was the first man in this country [Iceland] who wrote down in the Norröne language ⁵ narratives of events both old and new. In the beginning of his book he wrote principally about the first settlements in Iceland, the laws and government, and next of the lagmen [law-speakers],¹ and how long each had administered the law; and he reckoned the years at first, until the time when Christianity was introduced into Iceland, and afterwards reckoned from that to his own times. To this he added many other subjects, such as the lives and times of kings of Norway and Denmark, and also of England; besides accounts of great events which have taken place in this country itself. His narratives are considered by many men of knowledge to be the most remarkable of all; because he was a man of good understanding, and so old that his birth was as far back as the year after Harald Sigurdson’s fall.² He wrote, as he himself says, the lives and times of the kings of Norway from the report of Odd Kollason, a grandson of Hall of Sidu. Odd again took his information from Thorgeir Afradskoll, who was an intelligent man, and so old that when Earl Hakon the Great was killed (968) he was dwelling at Nidaros³—the same place at which King Olaf Trygvesson afterwards laid the foundation of the merchant town of Drontheim which is now there.

The priest Are came, when seven years old, to Haukadal⁴ to Hall Thorarinson, and was there fourteen years. Hall was a man of great knowledge and of excellent memory; and he could even remember being baptised, when he was three years old, by the priest Thangbrand, the year before Christianity was established by law in Iceland. Are was twelve years of age when Bishop Isleiv⁵ died, and at his death eighty years had elapsed since the fall of Olaf Trygvesson. Hall died nine years later than Bishop Isleiv, and had attained nearly the age of ninety-four years. Hall had traded between the two countries, and had been in partnership in trading concerns with King Olaf the Saint, by which his circumstances had been greatly improved, and he had become well acquainted with the kingdom of Norway. He had fixed his residence in Haukadal when he was thirty years of age, and he had dwelt there nearly sixty-four years, as Are tells us. Teit, a son of Bishop Isleiv, was fostered in the house of Hall of Haukadal, and afterwards dwelt there himself. He taught Are the priest, and gave him information about many circumstances which Are afterwards wrote down. Are also got many a piece of information from Thurid, a daughter of the gode¹ Snorre.² Thurid was wise and intelligent, and remembered her father Snorre, who was nearly thirty-five years of age when Christianity was introduced into Iceland, and died a year after King Olaf the Saint’s fall.³ So it is not wonderful that Are the priest had good information about ancient events both here in Iceland, and abroad, being a man anxious for information, intelligent, and of excellent memory, and having besides learned much from old intelligent persons.

¹ The Danish tongue is the name given in ancient times to the language spoken in all the three Scandinavian lands.

² Family surnames were not in use, and scarcely are so now, among the Northmen. Olaf the son of Harald was called Olaf Haraldson; Olaf’s son Magnus, Magnus Olafsson; and his son Hakon, Hakon Magnusson: thus dropping altogether any common name with the family predecessors. This custom necessarily made the tracing of family connection difficult, and dependent upon the memory of scalds or others. The appellations Fair-haired, Black, etc. have been given to help in distinguishing individuals of the same name from each other. Hinn Frö de the Wise, the Much-knowing—the Polyhistor, as it is translated into Latin by the anti-quarians—is applied to many persons; and is possibly connected with the old Norman French appellative Prud-Prud’homme.

³ Kvine is the fjord and district about Kvinesdal in the south of Norway.

¹ Bauta-Steiner. These are in Scotland calledstanding stonesby the common people, and we have no other word in our language for those monuments.

² Uppsalir, the High Halls, was not the present city of Upsala; but Gamle (Old) Upsal, two miles north of the present Upsala.

³ Vigfusson has shown that this is incorrect. The most of the Bauta-Steiner date from the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

⁴ This name is now usually written Haakon and is pronounced as if spelt Hawkon.

⁵ The Norrönt maal (really the Norse speech) was the name for the written language in Norway and Iceland in the twelfth and following centuries.

¹ The Law-speaker was the president of the Lagrette, the legislative authority of the Icelandic Althing. The Speaker was so called because be spoke what was the law.

² Harald was killed in1066.

³ Nidaros, Drontheim, Trondhjem, all the same place.

⁴ In the South of Iceland.

⁵ Isleiv was bishop of Iceland, and had studied at Erfurth in Germany; he died1079. B847

¹ Goder were priests and judges, and a hereditary class, apparently, in Iceland in the heathen time. But we hear little or nothing of such a priesthood in Norway; nor is it clear what their civil jurisdiction may have been in Iceland compared to that of the lagmen, or whether the goder, originally the priests by hereditary right, as descendants of Odin’s twelve diar, were not ex officio the lagmen or judges also.

² Snorre Gode died in1031, at the age of sixty-seven.

³ This happened in1030.

THE YNGLINGA SAGA

OR THE STORY OF THE YNGLING FAMILY FROM ODIN TO HALFDAN THE BLACK

CHAPTER I. OF THE SITUATION OF COUNTRIES.—It is said that the earth’s circle which the human race inhabits is torn across into many bights, so that great seas run into the land from the out-ocean. Thus it is known that a great sea goes in at Narve-sund,¹ and up to the land of Jerusalem. From the same sea a long sea-bight stretches towards the north-east, and is called the Black Sea, and divides the three parts of the earth; of which the eastern part is called Asia, and the western is called by some Europa, by some Enea.² Northward of the Black Sea lies Swithiod the Great,³ or the Cold. The Great Swithiod is reckoned by some as not less than the Great Serkland⁴; others compare it to the Great Blueland.⁵ The northern part of Swithiod lies uninhabited on account of frost and cold, as likewise the southern parts of Blueland are waste from the burning of the sun. In Swithiod are many great domains, and many races of men, and many kinds of languages. There are giants, and there are dwarfs, and there are also blue men, and there are many kinds of strange creatures. There are huge wild beasts, and dreadful dragons. On the south side of the mountains which lie outside of all inhabited lands runs a river through Swithiod, which is properly called by the name of Tanais,⁶ but was formerly called Tanaquisl, or Vanaquisl, and which falls into the Black Sea. The country of the people on the Vanaquisl was called Vanaland, or Vanaheim; and the river separates the three parts of the world, of which the eastermost part is called Asia, and the westermost

Reviews for Heimskringla - The Norse King Sagas

[agricolaoval · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the great medieval books. Written around 1200 it looks back to what happened in the two preceding centuries. And believe me this is good reading. Snorri Sturluson lived 800 years ago, but he wrote like one of our contemporaries. His style is every bit comparable to that of Hemingway. He tells his stories in the simplest of words, just mentioning what happens. And like Hemingway he makes us see the drama, the passion and the violent feelings that the characters must have experienced. He is also very much aware of the landscapes where the dramas unfold, and anyone familiar with the Norwegian landscapes will immediately recognize the setting and its almost mythical dimensions. A brilliant story that I never grow tired of.

[dollybantry · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I have to admit I never finished this, it was just too violent. But interesting.